Nurse's Risk with the Rebel
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Karin Baine
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CHAPTER ONE
HEAT BURNED JAY’S eyes as he watched his new life go up in flames.
‘I guess you didn’t need to get here in such a hurry after all, huh?’ Marko, the taxi driver who’d given him a ride from the landing strip, stood beside him watching the fire service battle the inferno engulfing the house he hadn’t even got to set foot in.
‘I guess not.’
‘If I’d known you were having a barbie I would’ve grabbed a few snags.’
Although he’d been working in Australia for over two years now, Jay wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to that dry sense of humour.
‘Now what do I do?’ he said to no one in particular. His move to the Outback in Victoria was supposed to be an adventure, but he had hoped to just climb into bed tonight and sleep. Not look on, helpless, as the accommodation he’d been provided with as part of the package for his new flight doctor position went up in smoke. The red and gold tongues of the fire illuminating the dark night sky would’ve been pretty if it didn’t represent more loss.
‘There are no more scheduled flights out of Dream Gulley and goodness knows when the Royal Flying Doctor Service will get alternative accommodation sorted out for you. You know anyone else out this way, mate?’
‘No.’ He hadn’t seen much sign of civilisation flying in, but he supposed that was why he was here. The flying doctor service was to give the rural community medical services they couldn’t easily access because of the location. Unfortunately, until he got to know anyone out here there was no one he could ask for a sofa for the night.
Marko shrugged. ‘You could try the pub. They have rooms there.’
‘Okay, thanks.’ There didn’t seem to be any other option, especially since the only person he’d met since getting off that plane was now high-tailing it back to his pick-up truck before he could ask him for a bed.
Jay spotted a police car pull up and went over to speak to the officer who got out. ‘Hi. Er...can you tell me what happened?’
‘That’s not a local accent.’ The cop eyed him with some suspicion.
‘No, I’m from London, England. Jay Brooke. I was supposed to be moving in here tonight.’
The furrowed brow soon morphed into something friendlier.
‘Ah, you’re the new doc? Didn’t know you were a pom.’ He shook hands with Jay.
‘Nice to meet you.’ He didn’t take offence at the affectionate nickname—he’d heard it a lot in the time he’d been in the country.
‘Sorry it isn’t in better circumstances. Too early to tell what caused the fire, but it’s been hotter than hell lately and it doesn’t take much to start a fire out here when everything is dry as dirt. It’s a tinderbox and one spark could set the whole town on fire. On top of that, we don’t have the emergency services on tap out this way, but I guess you know all about that.’
‘I guess so. Do you need me for anything, or can I go and find somewhere else to stay the night? Marko said the pub might have a room?’ He was too tired to get upset about the fact he was standing here in the middle of nowhere with all his worldly possessions in a couple of bags, watching the life he was supposed to share with Sharyn go up in flames.
It was probably fitting when this had been her dream. She’d been the one who’d talked him into coming out here with that stupid tick list, and without her he was struggling to complete it. They’d moved to Melbourne to start a new life together, never in a million years expecting she would be dead just over a year later from a heart condition she didn’t even know about.
Those three years they’d spent saving and planning for their epic adventure seemed so long ago now. That sense of excitement he’d uncharacteristically felt as they’d made their list of things they wanted to experience was now replaced with an unending feeling of loss. This was supposed to be his freedom from the troubled childhood that had leaked into his adulthood, leaving him tied to his job and his home, afraid to venture too far from the places he felt safe. Sharyn had rescued him from that life, forced him out of his comfort zone on their crazy dates taking pottery classes, visiting animal shelters to volunteer, or just jumping on a train and seeing where they ended up. She’d shown him how to have fun, how to live life without being afraid of what was coming next.
Coming to Australia to explore more of those crazy adventures had been her idea and he’d been happy to go along with it because he loved her and wanted to be with her.
It had been great in those early days, visiting new places, doing things he could only have dreamed about when he was that frightened little boy locked in the closet, waiting for his father to take out his drunken temper on him.
Then one morning he’d found Sharyn dead in their bed and his whole new world had shattered, leaving him stranded without a purpose or anyone to lean on for support. They’d been planning on working for the RFDS, training in Melbourne so they could make the transition, anticipating so many more adventures in Victoria. Sharyn was going to be the flight nurse, with him as the flight doctor, so they’d be working and living together. Without her, he didn’t know who he was, or what he should be doing.
He’d finished his training and taken the post out here because that had been their plan, but he wasn’t even sure if he wanted any of this any more without her.
Perhaps this fire was a sign that he should call it quits and go back to his old life. Except that life had been without colour before Sharyn came into it, and he was afraid to go back to that dark place now she was gone. Reason enough, he supposed, to carry on with the adventures they’d planned together. At least it gave him a reason to get up in the morning, a purpose for the foreseeable future, though he didn’t know what he’d do once he’d ticked everything off that worn piece of paper he kept in his jacket pocket close to his heart.
‘We’ll probably need to get a few details from you, but we can do that tomorrow. I’m sure Barb will find you a bed for the night. Probably hers.’ The cop gave a hearty laugh and almost winded Jay with a slap on the back. He managed a feeble smile in response.
‘So, the pub?’ Without wanting to seem rude, he wished someone would simply point him in the right direction before he was forced to spend the night sleeping under the stars, along with whatever dangerous beasts lived out here in the Aussie wilds.
‘Yeah, it’s back there. Can’t miss it, mate, just follow the noise.’ The officer tipped his head back in the opposite direction to the burning wreckage that was supposed to be Jay’s new life.
‘Thanks for your help,’ he muttered, hoping this wasn’t a sign of things to come. The community hadn’t exactly been falling over themselves to make him feel at home so far.
‘No problem. Just don’t leave town.’
‘As if I have a choice.’ Jay lifted his bags and turned his back on the fierce heat, walking towards the town lights, and the aforementioned racket echoing through the night.
The Buchanan Arms was an imposing brown brick building standing on the edge of town. Jay imagined it was a leftover from the gold-mining days of the early nineteen-hundreds, when towns built up around nearby goldfields during the boom period. Each floor was punctuated with white trimmed arches which reminded him of those Mark Twain era ornate paddle steamers. He couldn’t help but wonder if the interior had been updated at any stage in the last hundred years or so.
Jay opened the doors. All eyes turned on him, and the room went silent.
He stood there like a roo in the headlights. Pub-goers froze mid-drink, watching him suspiciously over their glasses. He hovered, deciding whether to stay or flee, contemplating taking his chance sleeping al fresco after all.
‘Yes, love, what can I get you?’ Thankfully, the brunette behind the bar shouted over at him, her acceptance apparently enough for the patrons to lose interest in him and return to their conversations and beer.
‘Lager, please.’ Whilst he didn’t particularly feel like drinking, his throat was dry from the smoky atmosphere outside, and he thought he should attempt a conversation at least if he was going to make friends around here.
He perched on a barstool at the counter and set his bags on the floor, facing the mirrored backdrop displaying the large selection of spirit optics available. The barmaid set his pint in front of him, the condensation sliding down the glass making him lick his lips in anticipation of the cold brew slaking his thirst.
‘I’m looking for Barb. Can you tell me where I might find her?’
‘You’ve found her.’
‘Great. I need somewhere to stay tonight and Marko said you might have a room available.’
‘Oh, he did, did he? I don’t let rooms any more, more trouble than it’s worth. He knows that. Then again, Marko doesn’t usually heed anything a woman has to say around here.’ She glanced over at the corner, forcing a curious Jay to swivel around to see what was going on behind him.
Marko, who must have come here when Jay was talking to the police officer, was standing with a beer in his hand, pressing himself up against a blonde bending over the pool table trying to take a shot. Jay thought he was the woman’s boyfriend until she batted him away.
‘Knock it off, Marko. I’m not interested.’ She stood up, brushed down her thigh-skimming skirt and walked around to the other side of the table.
Jay took a swig of his beer, still watching the interaction now it had become clear they weren’t a couple. Although he’d only spent a car ride in the man’s presence, it was sufficient to know the sweaty, dirt-smeared taxi driver wasn’t exactly a prize catch. Especially for a woman who looked like that.
‘I was good enough for you last month,’ Marko boasted, proving Jay wrong.
He went back to his beer, realising there probably weren’t a lot of options for single, attractive women out here in a town of not much more than two hundred people. It wasn’t like the city, where dating was available at the swipe of a screen and people could pick and choose a partner based on their outward appearance. Not that he had any experience of dating out here, when he and Sharyn had been an established couple when they’d arrived. Together five years, she’d been his world, and he’d planned on proposing to her once they’d settled. When he’d been with her, no other woman had even been on his radar, and now he was grieving her loss too much to even contemplate meeting someone else.
‘Yeah, well, I must’ve been desperate. I’m not interested, Marko.’
Jay was trying to block out the conversation. It shouldn’t have been hard with the cacophony of sounds carrying on around him. Even Barb had lost interest, leaving him to go and serve someone else, conversation about possible accommodation seemingly over too. At this rate he might as well get on the first flight back to Melbourne and try to get his old job back at the hospital in the emergency department.
‘Aw, come on, Meadow. You know you want me really.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Jay saw the man who’d brought him to town trap the pretty pool player in the corner of the bar whilst the rest of the patrons appeared oblivious to what was going on.
‘I think the lady said she wasn’t interested,’ he said, loud enough to be heard above the general chatter, setting his beer back down on the counter. Jay wasn’t the sort to get into fights or drama, but neither was he the kind of man to sit back and let a woman be publicly harassed without doing anything. It was that culture of being passive through fear of making a scene which let men like Marko think they could get away with that disgusting behaviour.
He felt all eyes on him, the atmosphere thick with tension, everyone apparently waiting for someone else to make the next move. Marko slowly turned around to face Jay, finally giving his prey some space to breathe.
‘Who the hell do you think you are, telling me what to do? You’ve only been in town five minutes.’
‘Long enough to realise what a piece of work you are, and that this lady doesn’t want to know you.’
‘This is none of your business, mate. The lady is capable of making her own decisions.’
‘I think she already made it, but you appear to be hard of hearing, mate.’ Jay slowly rose from his barstool, sick of this place already, and the stench of Marko’s body odour problem still fresh in his nostrils.
‘What, do you think you’re in with a shot, big guy? You think you can sweet-talk my girl with that fake British accent and find yourself a bed for the night? I don’t think so.’ Marko fronted up to him and, after the day he’d had, Jay was ready to knock him out just to shut him up.
‘Hey, you two, I’m still here, and very capable of defending myself as well as making decisions! Marko, rack off, and you, whoever you are, I’m not into macho morons either.’ The woman who’d been fending off Marko’s advances wedged herself between them, clearly not afraid to make her opinions known.
Close up, Jay could see why Marko had become territorial. She was beautiful, and feisty. He could see by the tension in her body and the fire burning in her blue eyes that she’d been holding back, and Marko was lucky she hadn’t shoved that pool cue somewhere very personal. It was clear to Jay she could fight her own battles if she chose to, so he backed off. Marko clicked his tongue against his teeth before he stood down.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—’ Jay attempted an apology but the petite firecracker grabbed her coat and bag and shoulder charged them both on her way out of the door.
‘Making friends already?’ Barb set another beer in front of Jay before he could refuse it.
‘Looks like it.’ He drained the first bottle and set to work on the second.
‘Don’t mind our Meadow, she’s got her daddy’s temper. As for Marko, he’s harmless, if a bit too handsy.’
The source of the evening’s unpleasantness was sitting in the corner nursing his beer, glaring daggers at Jay. He was sorry he’d given him a tip now.
‘I was only trying to help.’
‘I know, don’t take it personally. We wouldn’t have let it go too far, but we know from experience not to offer Meadow any help unless she asks for it. She’s a spitfire, that one. But it is nice to have a real gentleman here and I think we could find you a bed for the night at least.’
‘Thank you. You have no idea how grateful I am after the night I’ve had. I just watched my new home burn to the ground.’ As soon as he finished his beer, he’d say goodnight and disappear upstairs. Hopefully, tomorrow would be a better start.
‘You’re the new flight doc?’
He supposed he’d have to get used to everyone knowing his business now in a town this small, a world away from the anonymity of the city, where he’d been able to grieve Sharyn without getting dragged into other people’s drama. Tonight had taught him one lesson and that was to think before he acted. The opposite of everything Sharyn had taught him.
When they’d met in London, he’d been working all the time, his life completely devoted to helping others, leaving no time for himself. Relationships up until that point had been brief physical affairs because he hadn’t been in the right head space to share his life with anyone. Sharyn had shown him how to have fun, how to live, and persuaded him that moving to Australia would be a great adventure, leaving behind the trauma of his childhood to embrace the endless possibilities available in a new country.
Although it had given him a few sleepless nights, he’d been excited for the move. Melbourne was supposed to have been the start of their new life, the base for everything they wanted to do, all the adventures they were going to experience. Neither of them could have known that all of their plans were going to come to a premature end.
Now, moving to the Outback without Sharyn, he was just going through the motions. It no longer felt like an adventure, just something that was expected of him. Instead of more big plans for working together and exploring the countryside, he was here alone, grieving for the woman he loved and the future they would never get to have. Getting himself into trouble in the meantime.
‘Yeah,’ he conceded eventually, resigned to the fact that everyone would know who he was and why he was here soon enough.
Barb tipped her head back and gave a chesty laugh, the kind that came from years of hard smoking and living.
‘What’s so funny about that?’ He’d had a good reputation back home, a steady job, and he’d given it all up to gamble on a better life out here. So far, it had been a nightmare. He had hoped this would be his new start, but now it seemed he was simply making enemies. Neither Marko nor the lovely Meadow were likely to buy him a beer any time soon. That left him another one hundred and ninety-eight residents to try and befriend or risk complete alienation.
‘Meadow is the flight nurse you’ll be working alongside. Good luck with that.’ Barb bit back another laugh as she walked away, apparently to share the news with the rest of the bar, a raucous chorus of laughs sounding soon after she spoke. With that final humiliation Jay decided to call it a night. It sounded as though tomorrow wasn’t going to prove any more successful than today if he’d just ticked off his new colleague.
Maybe he’d get lucky and she wouldn’t recognise him once he’d had a shower and a shave...
Meadow stomped into the flight base, ready for her shift. Hopefully, she’d be kept busy enough to get out of this funk she’d been in since last night.
‘What have we got?’ she asked Kate, the base manager who co-ordinated the calls providing healthcare for communities which didn’t have a local medical facility to call on. As well as emergency aeromedical retrieval they provided patient transfers, primary healthcare and fly-in, fly-out general practitioner clinics in rural areas.
‘We’ve got that vaccination clinic for the kids out in Whitley today. Other than that, it’s pretty quiet so far. Touch wood.’ The older woman, who’d been here long before Meadow came to work, rapped her knuckles on her head so as not to tempt fate. Although if there was one person whose head was certainly not wooden, it was Kate. She was the hub of the service, if not the building. Sometimes Meadow wondered if she ever left work at all when she always seemed to be here, organising everything and everybody.
‘As much as I don’t wish anyone ill, I could do with a distraction today, before I go and give that bogan Marko a piece of my mind.’ She dropped the file Kate had just given her with a thump on the desk, wishing it was Marko’s head.
‘Oh? What’s he done now?’
‘Just Marko being his usual obnoxious self. I was very restrained, if I do say so myself. He didn’t go home with a pool cue embedded in his skull.’ She shouldn’t have encouraged him last month and given in to his attentions. Now he had false hopes for something more between them.
In her defence, she’d been feeling particularly low when he’d asked her to dance and bought her a couple of beers. It had been a while since her last relationship, and there weren’t a lot of viable options out this way. She’d grown up with most of the men her age out here and none of them were the reliable type, including Marko. No one stayed for long in Dream Gulley and those who’d been born here left as soon as they could because there were no prospects in the old Outback mining town. She was only here because it was the place her father had last settled and he was the only family she had left, bar her mother, who had remarried and started a new life in Queensland.
Meadow didn’t worry so much about her, she had a job and a partner. It was her father’s life that still lacked stability—her father’s and hers.
Kate reached across the desk to pat her hand. ‘It’s about time you found a nice man to settle down with.’
Meadow’s laugh was completely devoid of mirth. ‘Don’t you think I’ve tried? All I want is someone with a good job who wants to get married and have kids. That’s all. It’s not such a big ask, is it?’
Kate tilted her head to one side and gave her that sympathetic look everyone had when they found out Meadow was single and over thirty. Meadow had known plenty of girls who’d married young and whose partners cheated on them, or ran off because they were too immature to deal with having a family. So she’d taken her time, and apparently been left with the dregs, but she still wasn’t going to settle. If she was expected to make compromises she’d rather stay single. She was used to doing everything on her own anyway.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe you’re being too picky?’
She snatched her hand from under Kate’s. It was all right for her; she’d found her nice guy with the steady job and they’d been together for ever. And yes, she was jealous, but that didn’t mean she was going to lumber herself with the first sweaty ape who showed an interest in her. Not again, anyway.
‘I most definitely am. I’m not going to be my mother.’
‘Your mother’s lovely.’
‘I’m not denying that, but she waited until we left Dad before she made any sort of life for herself. We were so unsettled, with Dad chasing his fortune all over the country. Gold-hunting isn’t as glamorous as everyone thinks it is. It’s an obsession, an addiction, which cost him his family, and does he have anything to show for it after all this time? No.’ It was a touchy subject for her. Although she looked out for her father, they didn’t have much of a relationship. His choice. After years of traipsing around the country with him on a whim, all their money ploughed into whatever sure thing he’d found, it wasn’t surprising her mother had eventually had enough and issued him an ultimatum.
He’d chosen the gold, or rather, the pursuit of it, rather than settling down in a nice house in town. But he had made an attempt at compromise, buying land and finally putting down roots. It had come too late for her mother, who’d left him anyway. Meadow still held some resentment over that. Her father had tried, her mother hadn’t. She’d moved out anyway and rented a place for her and Meadow in the town. It had seemed cruel to her to live so close but give up on their family as a whole and she’d tried to keep a relationship with her father over the years because he had no one else, but it wasn’t easy.
A few years later, when her mother had met someone else and planned a new life in Queensland, she’d tried to get Meadow to go with her, but she hadn’t been ready to give up on her dad. At eighteen, she’d been old enough to make the decision to stay, to train as a nurse and have a life of her own. Staying close by for her father if he ever needed her.
Once in a while they saw each other in the pub, or she called in to make sure he was doing all right. It felt like a one-sided relationship when she was the one making all the effort, but she was fighting a losing battle against the one true love in his life. Gold. Meadow didn’t think it was about making his fortune any more, it was the buzz he got from it that kept him going. Like a gambling addict always chasing the win, even when he made any money he put it back in, hoping for a bigger pay-out at the end.
‘Not everyone’s like your dad, hon.’
‘You reckon? I’ve dated a few feckless wasters in my time, unwittingly, I might add. They always start out attentive and reliable but it’s not long before you find out they’re still using multiple profiles on every dating app that exists, or they’re living at home with their mother because they’ve gambled every last cent they ever had.’ That last one had come as a shock. Shawn had seemed perfect for her, but she wasn’t prepared to be around another man who lied to her or who had the potential to sacrifice her for his vices, as her father had done. She was going to have to be more vigilant than ever when it came to her love life or she’d end up with someone like Marko and convince herself he would change. Like her mother must have done a hundred times before she’d plucked up the courage to walk away from her father.
‘You’ve just been unlucky.’
‘I’m beginning to think I’ll have to move to the city if I’m ever going to meet someone.’
‘I don’t know... That new doc is here and he’s a bit of a hunk. He’s already been in this morning. I sent him over to the hangar to meet the engineering crew. I hear he’s single too.’ Kate gave her a wink and Meadow knew she’d been giving him the third degree already.
‘Yeah, well, looks aren’t everything,’ she grumbled, her mood not improved by Kate’s mooning over the new doctor’s arrival. After her disastrous dating life so far, she was tempted to just surround herself with stray cats and dogs for company instead of burdening herself with another disappointing man. Even handsome strangers thought they could wade in and she’d fall at their feet, grateful for the attention.
She thought back to last night and the man at the bar who’d made a show of her. As if she couldn’t handle Marko on her own and needed someone who looked like an action figure to save her. Perhaps he’d thought playing her white knight would’ve earned him a place in her bed instead of Marko, unaware it took a lot more than a pretty face and smouldering grey eyes to impress her. Like every other new face around town, he’d probably only been passing through anyway. They got a lot of strangers stopping off for a drink or supplies on their way to more exotic locations. No one came here on purpose and it wasn’t easy to attract staff. That was why the RFDS offered incentives like accommodation and attractive salaries with the positions.
After the fire last night, she assumed the new doc had spent the night in a fancy city hotel, counting himself lucky. With nowhere to live, he wasn’t likely to stick around anyway, so there was no point in getting doe-eyed over him like Kate. Meadow was more concerned with having someone here long-term to pick up the slack and ease her workload.
‘Oh, yeah? See for yourself,’ Kate whispered before sitting up in her chair and plastering a great big smile on her face. ‘Morning, Dr Brooke.’
‘Just call me Jay.’
Upon hearing the English accent, Meadow pivoted to see who had come in. It seemed to happen in slow motion—the sun creating a halo effect around his head, illuminating that buzzcut she recognised from the man who’d annoyed her even in her dreams last night. He offered a bright white smile in response to Kate’s as he removed his mirrored sunglasses, and a pair of familiar grey eyes homed in on her.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake...’ It was just her luck to get some macho moron as her new workmate, who’d be bossing her around in no time. He’d already made it clear he didn’t trust her to do things without his help.
‘Hello again, Meadow.’ He acknowledged her with a tip of his head. ‘And you, of course, Kate.’
The manager’s coy giggle did nothing to alleviate Meadow’s irritation. Neither did the way Dr Jay Brooke said her name, as though he was mocking it, mocking her.
She told herself it wouldn’t be for long. His house had just burned down, there was nothing left for him here.
It was only that thought that would get her through a day spent in close quarters with him.
